Taskbar Icon Overlay (custom little Windows 11 program)

[Jonathan Lahijani]

While my plan is to switch to Linux one day (probably Omarchy), I'm still putting that (and tiling window managers) off for a bit.  Let it cook a little more.

In Windows 11, I like my taskbar, but one nagging thing is that it's hard to differentiate the icons of many Code/Codium instances given that I don't group them.

I use both programs actually: Code for actual coding and Codium as my Markdown note taking tool (I prefer to not use Obsidian and the million other markdown editors; Code/Codium for Markdown is fantastic since you get all the developer ergonomics)

With the help of AI, I developed a program with dotnet that makes it easy to add custom icon overlays effectively differentiating the program instances.  This saves a lot of headache of knowing which icon corresponds to which project with a quick glance.

Feel free to use it!

https://github.com/jlahijani/TaskbarIconOverlay

[BrendonKoz]

That's a pretty neat way to distinguish without hovering over the app icon for the window preview (or using WIN+TAB).

For what it's worth, if you didn't want to install an application to un-group your applications in the taskbar, I think the Windows Settings app allows you to customize that.

If I'm wrong, then it still exists via registry, and is accessible via Group Policy.

Start -> Run: "gpedit.msc"

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar > "Prevent grouping of taskbar items" ... set to "Enabled".

[Jonathan Lahijani]

@BrendonKoz The problem with that option in the screenshot is that while it ungroups the taskbar items, it keeps the "text" part of it, which I don't want because it's not necessary for me and I like to have a lot of windows open so I want to conserve horizontal space.

Windows 10 used to have that option, but they removed it in Windows 11.  That's why you have to use this Windhawk mod I mentioned in the readme:
https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping

A registry setting alone won't fix it unfortunately.  Come on Microsoft!